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Thursday, September 08, 2011

Beans on Toast

Curious about the popularity of beans on toast in British literature, I recently “baked” beans in the crockpot and ate them spread on a bagel thin. While I enjoyed the concoction, I belatedly discovered that I hadn’t recreated the British breakfast staple.

Apparently, beans on toast is to be made with beans cooked in a tomato sauce. Instead, I had prepared them with molasses, resulting in Boston beans on toast.

I was going to tie the beans on toast story to my outfit and claim that I sort of looked like the dish, but the similarity ends with all the brown. Maybe beans on moldy toast? I doubt that's popular on either continent.

I was in Vancouver this summer and went into an Irish pub to have rootbeer baked beans. They were kind of green, which was disturbing, but tasted good (I will admit to closing my eyes for the first bite so I didn't have to deal with the colour... they were so good I didn't need to worry for the second!)

I found this site about all things British when searching for "chopped toad." It was mentioned in an English novel I'm reading and much to my surprise, there are no toads in it - just chops, such as pork or lamb. The English use toad to describe other dishes also. Your beans that they put on toast can be found on this page under Full English Breakfast.

The Heinz Tomato variety are pretty widely available in Boston though we do have a pretty sizable immigrant population from England and Ireland. I find them in the grocery store in the very small international section or just on the shelf with all of the other canned beans. My husband is from Northern Ireland and he eats beans on toast pretty frequently, but he calls them "Skinheads on a Raft". I've had them as part of a modified Irish Breakfast and they are pretty good. I like them better than Boston Baked Beans (and I grew up with them). Love your blog, it always keeps me entertained at work. And the outfit is adorable with the boots! :)

BTW, I'm a recent lurker who has been inspired to wear my long neglected bracelets based on your outfit postings. I hope to branch out into more daring clothes combinations soon. Thanks for the inspirations!

I've read about beans on toast also but never thought it sounded appetizing! I have to admit that the tomato sauce bit makes it sound even worse. Nevertheless, I thought this post was clever and enjoyed reading it.